I had seen that it provided good yields. There it seemed to be an infallible method used by many columnists here. When they didn’t know what to write, they went out to the streets and always met people of artists; the director of the Basque Orchestra, a successful actress, the singer of a rock band, a painter... Otherwise, there are other important people: a former cultural counselor, a television presenter, an academic, an Athletic player... And so, with what one of them said to him, the columnist composed his little text. I wasn’t very inspired the last time, I wasn’t tender about the pesky of the column, and I thought I’d try the method too. The first few days passed and nothing, a couple of weeks, anyway; as the end of the month approached, I did not meet anyone on the street who could save the column. This is how sad my life is. But as I was on the verge of writing the column again and sending it to the newsroom, I came across a second-rate bertsolari in the pelukeria who has refused to participate in the tournaments. It's not much, but it's better than nothing. He followed our ttakunas and I didn't have to explain the thread to him. “I’m not going to tell you what you have to write,” he told me as he watched the sober over his head after the cut, “but think in a word, Biopower, Biopower in genuine Basque. It's from Foucault." Fuck you, Foucault. Michel

Foucalt showed that power is not a closed and static thing; that there are power zones, power relations. At the end of his intellectual career he developed the concept of biopower to explain how in contemporary societies power penetrates to the bowels of human life. That power keeps our habits, actions, desires, feelings, and so on under control. José Luis mentioned how, in the context of the ceasefire of ETA and subsequent declarations, the power is trying to make us unhappy. Controlling our happiness.

This is an old question of having to be sad. It has been recurrent in the history of Catholicism that the world, inevitably called a suffering, will come to the feast in life after death. The valley of tears and all that. On the contrary, the plots of power to keep us all under control are varied, and in late capitalism people usually dominate through the exact opposite. Through the need of constant pleasure. We are no longer condemned to be sad, but to be content. And honestly, I don't know what's worse. How much to be happy! A partner (beautiful, with a career and a master...), an exemplary family (a couple of children, Christmas lunch dinners), plans with friends (dinners, parties, mornings...) plans with colleagues (a bit of jogging, a game of football...), “dress up” with art and culture (a period of ignorance, museums, foundations...), also have to be well with oneself (yoga, pilates, asates...), therapy, etc. India, Egypt, etc. In this way, it is not surprising that ours are times of spleen; drunken with pleasure, we end up annoyed at last. How many times have we heard: “I can’t wait to spend the whole day lying on the couch getting bored!” Baudelaire was once asked by a friend, “Are you happy?” The poet’s response was without much symbolism: “I’m not so finished.”